


Standing By

by Leonawriter



Series: Chimney-Soot Steps, All The Way To The Stars [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, Missing Scene, Missy Lives, Post-Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:06:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: Missy's old and tried tricks are going to fail her one day, but not this day. She's far, far too stubborn to let herself die. Especially at her (his) own hand.





	Standing By

**Author's Note:**

> A term to denote one person choosing to stay close to another. Or, alternatively, a somewhat military term, referring to when one has to wait for further details or orders.

How long she lay there, she had no idea. That was one of the troublesome things about fake landscapes inside colony ships, though, the fact that you had to have a really good sense of time or a watch or something to figure out how long you'd been unconscious, and really, she wasn't even sure if she  _wanted_ to know.

She wasn't dead, though. Oh, heavens no. It'd take more than a blast from her own old laser screwdriver to put her out of the game for good.

Tired, though? An understatement. She felt the pain in each muscle of her body, from that shot - and both of her hearts as well.

She'd only barely been able to redirect some of the energy into the vortex manipulator that the Doctor had made sure to tamper with even before he'd put her in the vault - _it'll only bring you back here_ _again, back to wherever the vault is, just in case you decide one day to try running off, or if someone or something else tries taking advantage,_ she remembered him saying, as well as a brief look in his eyes at the last, as if he was remembering something from one of his past lives. For a moment, he'd hesitated, opened his mouth, and she'd always wondered if he'd been going to say  _'again'_. She had a vague memory of  _something_ happening at some point, but things went almost  _worryingly_ fuzzy whenever she tried thinking too hard. Though who knew what state the thing was in now. Even  _that_ thing wasn't built to withstand a hit like she'd just taken.

So she supposed she might as well say that she was  _lucky to be alive_ , or something stupid like that.

The truth, though, was that she'd probably only prolonged the pain. She was exhausted and worn down, and sooner or later that lift was going to be coming back up. Not to mention, all the Doctor knew was that she'd gone off after her past self. For all he knew, she'd gone for good. Why go back for someone who wasn't there?

She closed her eyes at long last, letting out a sigh and telling herself that it was just for one breath, then two. Regeneration, no matter how off-base about how terminal the laser would be to her -  _I'm you, you idiot, I know how we work, I'm not_ that _stupid_ \- was still off the table for a while yet, her body a little too close to true death than would make it  _safe_.

It used to be that she'd close her eyes and the drums would keep a count of the universe for her in her head, so that she always had a steady beat to time herself to. For the first time in a long while, the silence she was met with when she went listening without realising that she was looking, was deafening, made her panic, the loss of something so familiar was, for a moment, as terrifying as it was familiar.

She heard a sound.

More a vibration through the ground underneath her than something truly  _heard_. 

Her eyes snapped open, lungs straining to get enough air to move after having lain there for - how long, again? Long enough, she knew that now, and she'd have needed far longer than just a few breaths to regain her energy and then go limping back the way she'd come, and it hadn't been that long.

Fear spiked. 

 _I reprogrammed them,_  a memory of not even a few hours ago played through her mind, the Doctor having won the upper hand against both of her selves in one go,  _I changed the way they classify 'human'. One heart, to two._

They'd come for her. She was right outside the lift, the fact that she might be dying didn't matter - they'd come for  _her_.

She'd wanted to go back to him. Wanted, for just a while at least, to stand by his side in this, for however long it took. And now-

With all of the strength left in her, she reached across her body as she watched the numbers come closer and closer to the floor they were on.

 _I would have done it,_ she found herself thinking to an imaginary Doctor, watching her impassively. And also,  _Don't you dare say this is the same as what he wanted to do. I listened, Doctor - this is the face that did years of listening, or tried._

_But I can't. Not right now. Not here._

The doors began to open, and she was still fumbling at the controls with a shaking hand as emotionless silver -  _I made you, twice I made you_ \- began to step out.

And then, the harsh winds of the time vortex, ripping her from one moment and-

-depositing her, roughly, somewhen - hopefully, somewhere, too - else.

She gasped at the air, the taste of it telling her that she was no longer in a ship with only a pretend atmosphere but a  _real planet_ , a  _real sky_ , and she had a brief glimpse of a blue sky and clouds before her eyes drifted shut again.

 _Earth_ , she mused to herself,  _of course it's Earth. Where else would it take me._

And then, darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically the beginning of a storyline that might or might not be questionably canon compliant, but this particular bit could pass as a standalone fix of its own.
> 
> It could be said that she didn't just hop back home before because of being so close to the black hole; the manipulator needed to be super-charged and/or further away in order to even make an attempt. Even here, its coordinates aren't exactly perfect.


End file.
